On Father’s Day 2022, we hiked from Warwick Park east and from French Creek State Park south, leaving a gap in our quest to hike the entire Horse-Shoe trail (Google Map). Today, we filled that gap. We took Theo on a 4.8 mile hike west of St. Peters.
St. Peters, PA
St. Peters is a quaint little village. And little is an understatement. It little more than 1/4 mile of road with tiny shops. The road runs parallel to the French Creek. At one end of the village is a parking lot where you can access a bridge to head off on trails in a multitude of directions.
For this hike we headed south until we reached the Horseshoe Trail and then headed west. The area around St. Peters is pretty crowded. A lot of families with small children come to enjoy the French Creek and many families walk the trails near the village. Once we got away from the more crowded section, we let Theo off the leash so he could get some run time.
When we had to put him back on the leash, he complained loudly. He would pull on the leash, so we would stop until the pulling stopped. This was unacceptable to our belligerent puppy. The disciplinary action induced barking. To stop the barking, I had him sit and I would pet him to calm him down…then we could move on. That usually lasted about 10 steps before the process repeated. He’s a stubborn dog.
When we got to the Crow’s Nest Preserve we took a detour. Just south of the trail, the Outdooractive app has a marker for Warwick Woods Campground. Our diversion took us to an abandoned campground.
Graffiti everywhere
The trails west of St. Peters are good. There is a mix of crowded and more isolated trails. You can go there 3 or 4 times and discover new areas each time. The one thing that detracts from the trails is the graffiti. It seams to be on everywhere and it’s a constant reminder that a good portion of the public that visits these trails don’t respect nature.
